The 2024 Twink Peaks Awards... LIVE!
Celebrating the best of the year
We’ve reached that magical time of the year: it’s awards season! But awards season can get stale and predictable pretty quickly, and the people yearn for something fresh. For years, critics and fans alike have been in want of a new, exciting awards show. One that combines the prestige and austerity of the Oscars, with the louche party vibe of the Golden Globes, with the pure irreverence and faggotry of the Las Culturistas Culture Awards. Well, I am very proud to announce that I have single handedly built this show!
So here’s the tea. Last year, my love for making stupid powerpoints collided with my love for awards season (as well as my impeccable taste), and I made a silly little “awards show” that I just posted to my close friends story. Categories included: Best Picture, Record of the Year /srs and /j, Mother of the Year, Gay Guy of the Year, etc. You get the picture. I liked the idea and thought it was fun, but was also certain that no one would take twenty minutes out of their day to watch through the whole thing. And yet, so many of my sweet wonderful friends did! And after the success of last year’s virtual awards, I dreamed of inviting a bunch of friends over to my house, mandating that everyone show up in formal wear, and presenting the awards live—essentially hosting a proper awards show. So this year that’s exactly what I did.
To my delight, the ceremony was a riotous success! Some highlights included an opening musical number parody of Diet Pepsi by Addison Rae and even a Best Picture envelope mishap. This is all neither here nor there (because I didn’t get any of this on video, you really had to be there, and even then I probably wouldn’t post it on the internet for all to see…), but I thought, what better way to immortalize this historic night and reflect on some of my favorite media throughout the year than to recap the awards for you all here! So without further ado, here are all the nominees and winners of the 2024 Twink Peaks awards, also known as the FagGOTs1.
Best Picture
Challengers (2024)
La Chimera (2023)
Problemista (2023)
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
The Substance (2024)
Queer (2024)
A Real Pain (2024)
Dicks: The Musical (2023)
Y tu mamá también (2001)
The Long Goodbye (1973)
Winner: Challengers (2024)
After the aforementioned envelope mishap resulted in Dicks: The Musical being wrongfully announced as the winner2, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers ultimately received film’s highest honor of the night. There was simply no other pick! I truly think this is a totemic film that we will be looking back on for generations. I don’t plan on ever having kids, but I do look forward to telling my sister’s future kids all about what it was like seeing Challengers for the first time. There were many good films this year, even a few great ones (and there are still a ton that I have left to see), but when I look back on this year in film, the first thing I’ll think about is Challengers. Fuck it, I’m gonna watch it again tonight.
Film Performance of the Year
Zendaya - Challengers
Josh O’Connor - Challengers
Mike Faist - Challengers
Josh O’Connor - La Chimera
Anne Hathaway - The Idea of You
Kieran Culkin - A Real Pain
Demi Moore - The Substance
Jason Schwarzman - Queer
Winner: Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist - Challengers
Here we have an unprecedented three way tie! Among many reasons why this film is so memorable and intoxicating are its central performances, each of which can’t really succeed without the other two to bounce off of, which is why there was just no way to separate these three.
Best Television
The Traitors US (2023 - )
30 Rock (2006 - 2013)
RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009 - )
Interview With The Vampire (2022 - )
Veep (2012 - 2019)
Fantasmas (2024)
Industry (2020 - )
We Are Who We Are (2020)
The John Mulaney/Chappell Roan SNL Episode (2024)
Winner: Interview With The Vampire (2022 - )
For the record, 30 Rock came very close. But if there was one show that completely owned my ass this year, it was undeniably Interview With The Vampire. Sometimes just thinking about the existence of this show takes my breath away. How something so rich, thorny, florid, simultaneously melodramatic and deeply grounded, and above all else gay can possibly exist on mainstream television is beyond me. This is one of the most exciting series in a very long time, and easily the best television of the year.
Television Performance of the Year
Jacob Anderson - Interview With The Vampire
Chris Parnell - 30 Rock
Winner: Jacob Anderson - Interview With The Vampire
I don’t want to set a precedent going forward that the Best Performance winners will always be from the Best Picture and Best Television winners, however there is just no denying that the best performance I saw on TV all year—in a pretty mum year for TV otherwise—was by far Jacob Anderson. What an incredible, dynamic, un-self-conscious, and at times hilarious, performance! Louis is a character for the ages.
Album of the Year
Cowboy Carter - Beyoncé
Brat - Charli xcx
Chromakopia - Tyler, the Creator
Mahashmashana - Father John Misty
Challengers Soundtrack - Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, mixed by Boys Noize
Stop Making Sense Soundtrack - Talking Heads
Company Soundtrack
Winner: Brat - Charli xcx
Duh
Record of Year /srs
II MOST WANTED - Beyoncé feat. Miley Cyrus
II HANDS II HEAVEN - Beyoncé
Club Classics - Charli xcx
Girl, so confusing remix - Charli xcx feat. Lorde
365 - Charli xcx
Diet Pepsi - Addison Rae
The Subway - Chappell Roan
Noid - Tyler, the Creator
Balloon - Tyler, the Creator feat. Doechii
Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads
Winner: Girl, so confusing remix - Charli xcx feat. Lorde
Duh
Record of the Year /j
Sun Bleach Flies/Dancing On My Own Mashup
Sushi Glory Hole - The Lonely Island
Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, from the 30 Rock soundtrack
Midnight Train To Georgia, from the 30 Rock soundtrack
Winner: Sun Bleached Flies/Dancing On My Own Mashup
This was a stiff race, from the musical gags of 30 Rock that I love so much, to the pure shock of getting a new Lonely Island song in 2024, to Mirage’s unexpected Q1 hit which cinched her Drag Race iconography right before an untimely elimination. But the song /j I kept coming back to was this incredible mashup of Ethel Cain’s Sun Bleach Flies with Robyn’s Dancing On My Own, two of the most devastating songs ever written rendered even more obliterating when they’re fused together. There exists a subgenre on YouTube (and now increasingly TikTok) of this kind of mashup, where someone puts together two seemingly incongruous songs for the amusement of a very specific type of gay person on the internet (a stilted example is this mashup of I Want You To Love Me and Run Away With Me; a more successful example, so successful that it won this category last year, is this mashup of Boy’s a liar Pt. 2 and Weird Fishes/Arpeggi). However, this Sun Bleach Flies/Dancing On My Own mashup both justifies the existence of this subgenre and renders it completely unnecessary going forward, as no other mashup will ever reach the euphoric heights of this.
Brat Edit of the Year
Jack Schlossberg/Dennis Reynolds - 365
Alaska and Katya in All Stars 2 - Girl, so confusing feat. Lorde
Drag Race Mashup - Von dutch remix
Winner: Watergate - Spring Breakers
I say this without a shred of irony: fan edits are my favorite form of art that has sprung up in the digital age, and this has been a banner year for that form thanks to Brat. In particular, this Watergate edit (?!) set to Spring Breakers was a head above the rest, and really just proves the artistic and comedic potential of the form.
Mother of the Year
Phaedra Parks - The Traitors
Tashi Duncan
Roxxxy Andrews
Jane Krakowski
Nicole Kidman
Patti LuPone
Winner: Patti LuPone
Patti is and always has been mother. Patti is forever. She could feasibly win this award every year! But it felt like 2024 really was a flagship year for her. I don’t know if it was just because she was in that Marvel show (and subsequently had an iconic press run), or if it had anything to do with that video of her in Anything Goes going viral on twitter like every other week, but it felt like this was the year that the normies finally awoke to her genius. Praise Patti!
Gag of the Year
The boys kissing in Challengers
A Blood Orange song playing over the boys kissing in Challengers
The tennis racket signal - Challengers
Finding out that Kate Berlant and Naomi McPherson are dating
Joni Mitchell is back on Spotify!
Interview with the Vampire season 2 first look teaser trailer
Roxxxy Andrews busting out a nail file during her lip sync against Plastique Tiara
Winner: The tennis racket signal - Challengers
In a film chock full of gags, this was the gaggiest. This was the most gagged I’ve been at anything all year, hands down. I truly will never forget the collective realization of my audience when I saw this movie for the first time! A wave of shock and thrill just washed over the crowd and all we were left to do is scream and cheer and hoot and holler. I’d never been in an audience that had that kind of overwhelming reaction, it was unreal. But on top of just being such a fun moment anecdotally, it’s also easily one of the most memorable Movie Moments of the year, and, like, maybe of the decade so far? I still get giddy watching that scene back. It’s where great screenwriting meets undeniable iconography meets insane sexual dynamics, and the result is pure movie magic. And I was gagged.
Gay Guy of the Year
John Early
Julio Torres
Jimmy Fowlie
Luca Guadagnino
Gregg Araki
Jonathan Bailey
Matt Damon
Louis de Pointe du Lac
Winner: Julio Torres
Between Problemista, Fantasmas, several memorable late night appearances, a great episode of Las Culturistas, and a brilliant sequel to one of his most beloved SNL sketches of all time, no one exceeded more at being a creatively inclined gay guy this year than Julio Torres.
Lesbian of the Year
Reneé Rapp
Chappell Roan
Kehlani
Julia Fox
Tracy Chapman
Kristen Stewart in Love Lies Bleeding
Katy O’Brien in Love Lies Bleeding
Me, Ella Brown
Winner: Chappell Roan
Listen, I was disappointed that I didn’t win too, but you can’t deny that Chappell really put lesbianism on the map this year. And besides, as a white lesbian with Missouri roots who’s obsessed with Drag Race, I feel like her win is a win for all of us :’)
Bisexual of the Year
Alan Cumming
Patrick Zweig
Lestat de Lioncourt
Every character played by James Duval in the films of Gregg Araki
HBO’s Industry
Jane Wickline
Soloman, as portrayed by Ayo Edebiri on SNL
Everyone on my close friends story3
Winner: Soloman, as portrayed by Ayo Edebiri on SNL
2024 was a huge year for bisexuality. In fact, this was the year that bisexuality officially became cool again. Most would attribute this to Challengers, and it’s true that Patrick Zweig came very close to taking the title. However, no one embodied bisexuality quite like Soloman, as portrayed by Ayo Edebiri. I remember watching this episode of SNL live and sitting there rapt as Ayo pulled off this high-wire act and delivered one of the most insane Southern (?) accents I’ve ever heard in my life. What a transcendent piece! This character is deeply real to me. This is surely a bisexual we will be talking about for years to come.
Straight Man of the Year
Josh O’Connor
Andy Samberg
Kyle MacLachlan
Winner: Josh O’Connor
DUH!
Artistic Achievement of 2024
“Oh, Mary!” the play by Cole Escola (I’m assuming, I have not seen it)
Brat, the album - Charli xcx
Brat, the rollout - Charli xcx
The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel - Jenny Nicholson
The artistic output of Luca Guadagnino in 2024
Conan O’Brien’s episode of Hot Ones
My Substack
Winner: Brat, the rollout- Charli xcx
This felt like a no-brainer (yes even up against my Substack). Brat is an incredible album on its own, but the reason it has become such an indelible cultural object is because of the genius rollout. Brat has literally transcended music and become a movement in its own right. The way it has only continued to expand throughout the year has been really astonishing to watch; I can’t think of any other album in recent memory that has had this kind of sustained relevance. We’re going to be looking back on it for years to come, and that’s why it feels like the greatest artistic achievement of the year.
Fartistic Achievement of 2024
Madame Web
The Tortured Poets Department - Taylor Swift
C,XOXO - Camila Cabello
Karma, and Jojo Siwa’s rebrand
The United States of America
Winner: Madame Web
And on the other side of the coin, we have Madame Web. Ah, Madame Web. How quaint it feels, looking back on it now. And how far we’ve come. One of the most spectacular failures in recent memory, and emblematic of virtually every problem illing the movie industry today. And yet, you can’t help ecstatically laughing through it all. In that way it may be one of the most definitive works of the year. We’re all doomed!
I simply can’t send you all off on the note of Madame Web (although, now that I think about it, that being my final word of the year on here would create a nice closed loop considering Madame Web just so happened to be how I opened my first Substack post all the way back in April, but I digress…), so please enjoy this picture of me and my gay little dog in a matching bowtie. I hope you’ve all enjoyed the awards, I hope this will become a yearly tradition (if we’re all even still alive by next year), and I’ll see you in 2025!
The official title of the awards show is still pending. Also don’t begrudge me not wanting to put that word in the headline…
Even though it would have been highly deserving, imo.
Everyone on my close friends story took this title last year. If I’m doing anything it’s having lots of bisexual friends.
i am seriously so sad that i missed this in person… but so happy that that meant getting excited scrolling thru this and seeing who the winners were. CHALLENGERS SWEEP!!!!!!!!! and u really do have so many bisexual friends.. <3